I think the focus on keypads is a mistake. I'd love a phone roughly like the OP's phone, except with a full range of characters and a largish keyboard. I don't

I think the focus on keypads is a mistake. I'd love a phone roughly like the OP's phone, except with a full range of characters and a largish keyboard. I don't think there's a lot of reason the phone needs to be so small either. I would bet you could make a Droid X sized phone, but lighter, with a nice hardware keyboard and great shock adsorption for about the cost of the OP phone. The fact that 'minimum viable' lacks texting is the result of price-fixing on the part of American carriers, not an intrinsic faculty of mobile devices.